Born in 1805 in the Danish town of Odense, near Copenhagen, Hans Christian Andersen was indeed an ugly duckling. Though his looks kept him apart from other children, and later made it difficult for him to find work as an actor, Andersen was profoundly touched by the power of stories and imagination from a very early age, encouraged by a father who told him bedtime stories and made wooden figures for him. Anna Carew-Miller illuminates how the facts of Andersen's life, and indeed everything around him, fueled such wondrous stories as "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Little Mermaid," while the fantastic ink and wash drawings of Kirill Chelushkin envision the strange characters and miniature theaters of Andersen's mind, in this oversized picture book biography for readers 8 and up.